EP2986026A1 - Hearing assistance device with beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information - Google Patents
Hearing assistance device with beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- EP2986026A1 EP2986026A1 EP15180702.1A EP15180702A EP2986026A1 EP 2986026 A1 EP2986026 A1 EP 2986026A1 EP 15180702 A EP15180702 A EP 15180702A EP 2986026 A1 EP2986026 A1 EP 2986026A1
- Authority
- EP
- European Patent Office
- Prior art keywords
- mwf
- speech
- signal
- microphone
- assistance system
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Granted
Links
- 230000009467 reduction Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 33
- 238000005457 optimization Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 18
- 230000009977 dual effect Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 10
- 238000000354 decomposition reaction Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 8
- 238000012545 processing Methods 0.000 claims description 45
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims description 20
- 238000013459 approach Methods 0.000 claims description 8
- 230000008569 process Effects 0.000 claims description 8
- 230000006870 function Effects 0.000 claims description 6
- 238000012546 transfer Methods 0.000 claims description 4
- 238000009472 formulation Methods 0.000 abstract description 12
- 239000000203 mixture Substances 0.000 abstract description 12
- 230000003044 adaptive effect Effects 0.000 abstract description 11
- 238000013461 design Methods 0.000 description 14
- 239000011159 matrix material Substances 0.000 description 10
- 238000006243 chemical reaction Methods 0.000 description 5
- 238000004458 analytical method Methods 0.000 description 3
- 230000008901 benefit Effects 0.000 description 3
- 230000000694 effects Effects 0.000 description 3
- 238000001914 filtration Methods 0.000 description 3
- 230000006872 improvement Effects 0.000 description 3
- 230000003321 amplification Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000005540 biological transmission Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000015572 biosynthetic process Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000015556 catabolic process Effects 0.000 description 2
- 238000004891 communication Methods 0.000 description 2
- 238000006731 degradation reaction Methods 0.000 description 2
- 238000001514 detection method Methods 0.000 description 2
- 210000000613 ear canal Anatomy 0.000 description 2
- 238000002474 experimental method Methods 0.000 description 2
- 238000003199 nucleic acid amplification method Methods 0.000 description 2
- 238000003786 synthesis reaction Methods 0.000 description 2
- 206010011878 Deafness Diseases 0.000 description 1
- 230000006978 adaptation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 239000000872 buffer Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000001364 causal effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000003750 conditioning effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000010586 diagram Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000003467 diminishing effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000007613 environmental effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 210000002768 hair cell Anatomy 0.000 description 1
- 230000010370 hearing loss Effects 0.000 description 1
- 231100000888 hearing loss Toxicity 0.000 description 1
- 208000016354 hearing loss disease Diseases 0.000 description 1
- 239000007943 implant Substances 0.000 description 1
- 230000002452 interceptive effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000008447 perception Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000004044 response Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000013432 robust analysis Methods 0.000 description 1
- 102220054093 rs147698935 Human genes 0.000 description 1
- 238000004088 simulation Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000012360 testing method Methods 0.000 description 1
Images
Classifications
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R25/00—Deaf-aid sets, i.e. electro-acoustic or electro-mechanical hearing aids; Electric tinnitus maskers providing an auditory perception
- H04R25/50—Customised settings for obtaining desired overall acoustical characteristics
- H04R25/505—Customised settings for obtaining desired overall acoustical characteristics using digital signal processing
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R3/00—Circuits for transducers, loudspeakers or microphones
- H04R3/005—Circuits for transducers, loudspeakers or microphones for combining the signals of two or more microphones
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
- G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
- G10L21/00—Speech or voice signal processing techniques to produce another audible or non-audible signal, e.g. visual or tactile, in order to modify its quality or its intelligibility
- G10L21/02—Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation
- G10L21/0208—Noise filtering
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R25/00—Deaf-aid sets, i.e. electro-acoustic or electro-mechanical hearing aids; Electric tinnitus maskers providing an auditory perception
- H04R25/40—Arrangements for obtaining a desired directivity characteristic
- H04R25/407—Circuits for combining signals of a plurality of transducers
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R25/00—Deaf-aid sets, i.e. electro-acoustic or electro-mechanical hearing aids; Electric tinnitus maskers providing an auditory perception
- H04R25/55—Deaf-aid sets, i.e. electro-acoustic or electro-mechanical hearing aids; Electric tinnitus maskers providing an auditory perception using an external connection, either wireless or wired
- H04R25/552—Binaural
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
- G10L—SPEECH ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES OR SPEECH SYNTHESIS; SPEECH RECOGNITION; SPEECH OR VOICE PROCESSING TECHNIQUES; SPEECH OR AUDIO CODING OR DECODING
- G10L21/00—Speech or voice signal processing techniques to produce another audible or non-audible signal, e.g. visual or tactile, in order to modify its quality or its intelligibility
- G10L21/02—Speech enhancement, e.g. noise reduction or echo cancellation
- G10L21/0208—Noise filtering
- G10L21/0216—Noise filtering characterised by the method used for estimating noise
- G10L2021/02161—Number of inputs available containing the signal or the noise to be suppressed
- G10L2021/02166—Microphone arrays; Beamforming
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R2203/00—Details of circuits for transducers, loudspeakers or microphones covered by H04R3/00 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
- H04R2203/12—Beamforming aspects for stereophonic sound reproduction with loudspeaker arrays
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R2225/00—Details of deaf aids covered by H04R25/00, not provided for in any of its subgroups
- H04R2225/43—Signal processing in hearing aids to enhance the speech intelligibility
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R2430/00—Signal processing covered by H04R, not provided for in its groups
- H04R2430/20—Processing of the output signals of the acoustic transducers of an array for obtaining a desired directivity characteristic
- H04R2430/25—Array processing for suppression of unwanted side-lobes in directivity characteristics, e.g. a blocking matrix
-
- H—ELECTRICITY
- H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
- H04R—LOUDSPEAKERS, MICROPHONES, GRAMOPHONE PICK-UPS OR LIKE ACOUSTIC ELECTROMECHANICAL TRANSDUCERS; DEAF-AID SETS; PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEMS
- H04R2460/00—Details of hearing devices, i.e. of ear- or headphones covered by H04R1/10 or H04R5/033 but not provided for in any of their subgroups, or of hearing aids covered by H04R25/00 but not provided for in any of its subgroups
- H04R2460/01—Hearing devices using active noise cancellation
Definitions
- This document relates generally to hearing assistance systems and more particularly to adaptive binaural beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information for noise reduction and speech quality.
- a hearing assistance system includes a microphone, a processing circuit, and a receiver.
- the microphone receives an input sound and produce a microphone signal representative of the input sound.
- the input sound includes a speech from a sound source.
- the processing circuit processes the microphone signal to produce an output signal.
- the processing circuit includes a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and approximately optimizes the MWF for noise reduction and speech quality in the output sound using a priori spatial information about the sound source.
- the receiver produces an output sound including the speech using the output signal.
- MMF multichannel Wiener filter
- the present subject matter provides hearing aids with adaptive binaural beamforming using a new MWF design that (1) alleviates the performance degradation resulting from inaccurate estimation of the signal correlation matrix, and (2) balances the performance of the two design criteria: noise reduction and speech quality.
- a priori spatial information is incorporated into the MWF design.
- the present subject matter also provides a general low-complexity iterative algorithm that has similar computation complexity as a conventional MWF.
- (approximate) knowledge of acoustic transfer functions (ATFs) for the signal sources is used to approximately optimize the MWF.
- This knowledge can be obtained by estimating the direction of arrivals (DOAs) of the signal sources with an assumption of the surrounded environment, e.g., anechoic room.
- DOAs direction of arrivals
- the optimization problem is formulated as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) aiming at striking an appropriate balance between the two design criteria: noise reduction and speech quality.
- QQP quadratically constrained quadratic program
- a low-complexity iterative dual decomposition approach is applied to solve the QCQP formulation. For each iteration, the filter can be updated in closed-form with similar computational complexity as the conventional MWF design. The low-complexity algorithm is very efficient in practice.
- the formulated QCQP allows the number of constraints and the allowable minimum noise reduction and maximum speech distortion to be arbitrary with a unified low-complexity dual decomposition approach implementation. Therefore, the low-complexity algorithm can be used for other constrained MWF formulations as well.
- FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment of a hearing assistance system 100 including an MWF.
- System 100 includes a microphone 102, a processing circuit 104, and a receiver (speaker) 106.
- system 100 is implemented in a hearing aid of a pair of binaural hearing aids.
- Microphone 102 represents one or more microphones each receiving an input sound and produces a microphone signal being an electrical signal representing the input sound.
- Processing circuit 104 processes the microphone signal(s) to produce an output signal.
- Receiver 106 produces an output sound using the output signal.
- the input sound may include various components such as speech and noise as well as sound from receiver 106 via an acoustic feedback path.
- Processing circuit 104 includes an adaptive filter to reduce the noise and acoustic feedback.
- the adaptive filter includes an MWF 108.
- processing circuit 104 receives at least another microphone signal from the other hearing aid of the pair of binaural hearing aids, and MWF 108 provides adaptive binaural beamforming using microphone signals from both of the hearing aids.
- FIG. 2 is an illustration of an embodiment of a hearing assistance system 200 with an MWF operating in frequency domain.
- System 200 represents an embodiment of system 100.
- system 200 is implemented in a hearing aid of a pair of binaural hearing aids, and the MWF provides adaptive binaural beamforming using microphone signals from both of the hearing aids.
- an A/D block 210 converts the microphone signal produced by microphone 102 from an analog microphone signal into a digital microphone signal.
- A/D block 210 includes an analog-to-digital converter and may include various amplifiers or buffers to interface with microphone 102.
- the digital microphone signal which represents a superposition of acoustic feedback and other sounds is processed by processing circuit 204.
- a D/A block 220 converts the digital output signal produced by processing circuit 204 into an analog output signal using which receiver 106 can produce an output sound.
- D/A block 220 includes a digital-to-analog converter and may include various amplifiers or signal conditioners for conditioning the analog output signal for use by receiver 106.
- Processing circuit 204 represents a simplified flow of digital signal processing from the digital microphone signal to the digital output signal.
- the processing is implemented using a digital signal processor (DSP).
- DSP digital signal processor
- the digital signal processing is performed in the frequency domain.
- a frequency analysis module 212 converts the digital (time domain) microphone signal into frequency subband signals.
- a time synthesis module 218 converts the subband frequency domain output signals into a time-domain output signal.
- FFT fast Fourier transform
- IFFT inverse FFT
- MWF 208 represents an embodiment of MWF 108.
- MWF 208 is configured to provide a noise reduction of a specified minimum amount while keeping speech distortion within a specified limit.
- MWF 208 is used in a binaural hearing aid design with frequency-domain implementation.
- a constrained optimization problem for the frequency-domain MWF design for each frequency tone is formulated according to the present subject matter as: min w ⁇ ⁇ w ⁇ ⁇ v i ⁇ 2 s . t . ⁇ w ⁇ ⁇ h ⁇ ⁇ - h r ⁇ ⁇ ⁇ 2 ⁇ ⁇ ⁇ h r ⁇ ⁇ 2 , ⁇ ⁇ ⁇ u , w ⁇ ⁇ h j ⁇ h ⁇ ⁇ w ⁇ ⁇ ⁇ n , j , ⁇ j ⁇ N .
- w( ⁇ ) ⁇ is the Wiener filter coefficient vector
- h( ⁇ , ⁇ ), ⁇ ⁇ ⁇ U is the set of candidate ATFs of the target reference sources, i.e., h( ⁇ );
- h r ( ⁇ , ⁇ ) is the ATF of the reference microphone;
- ⁇ ⁇ and ⁇ n,j are respectively the predetermined parameters that control the performance of the speech distortion and the noise reduction at the hearing aids.
- the objective of this formulation is to minimize the noise variance at the hearing aids.
- the first set of constraints aims to ensure that the speech distortion of the target reference source does not exceed the predefined threshold parameterized by ⁇ ⁇ for each candidate ATFs.
- the second set of the constraints aims to ensure that the noise reduction performance for each noise signal source is not worse than ⁇ n,j . Since this constrained optimization problem is convex, it can be solved efficiently by existing commercial optimization toolboxes.
- processing circuit 204 is configured to solve the constrained optimization problem using a customized low-complexity dual decomposition approach.
- the basic idea is to dualize the constraints into the objective function with dual variables ⁇ , so the dualized unconstrained optimization problem can be solved in closed-form as the conventional MWF algorithm.
- the dual variables ⁇ can be updated in closed-form as well.
- FIG. 3 is an illustration of an embodiment of such a process.
- ⁇ is the step size that determines the convergence rate of the iterative algorithm. Examples for the step size include fixed step size or diminishing step size.
- IW-SNRI intelligibility-weighted signal to noise ratio improvement
- IW-SD intelligibility-weighted speech distortion
- FIG. 6 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms at different levels of error in the VAD. To test the imperfect VAD, it is assumed that 30% of the noise-only frames is wrongly detected as signal-plus-noise frames, and 0% ⁇ 30% of the signal-plus-noise frames is wrongly detected as noise-only frames. From the experiment result as shown in FIG. 6 , the robust performance of the QCQP formulation can be observed.
- the required data transmission rate between the hearing aids can be unlimited, and a large portion of it is used for estimating the signal correlation matrices.
- the objective function depends on the correlation matrix of the noise signal, while the constraints are independent of them. This means that with a rough or inaccurate estimation of correlation matrix, an acceptable performance can still be achieved.
- the data transmission rate between the hearing aids can be reduced to decrease the communication overhead between the hearing aids.
- the hearing aid referenced in this patent application include a processor, which may be a DSP, microprocessor, microcontroller, or other digital logic.
- the processing of signals referenced in this application can be performed using the processor.
- processing circuit 104 and 204 may each be implemented on such a processor. Processing may be done in the digital domain, the analog domain, or combinations thereof. Processing may be done using subband processing techniques. Processing may be done with frequency domain or time domain approaches. For simplicity, in some examples blocks used to perform frequency synthesis, frequency analysis, analog-to-digital conversion, amplification, and certain types of filtering and processing may be omitted for brevity.
- the processor is adapted to perform instructions stored in memory which may or may not be explicitly shown.
- instructions are performed by the processor to perform a number of signal processing tasks.
- analog components are in communication with the processor to perform signal tasks, such as microphone reception, or receiver sound embodiments (i.e., in applications where such transducers are used).
- signal tasks such as microphone reception, or receiver sound embodiments (i.e., in applications where such transducers are used).
- realizations of the block diagrams, circuits, and processes set forth herein may occur without departing from the scope of the present subject matter.
- hearing assistance devices including hearing aids, including but not limited to, behind-the-ear (BTE), in-the-ear (ITE), in-the-canal (ITC), receiver-in-canal (RIC), or completely-in-the-canal (CIC) type hearing aids.
- BTE behind-the-ear
- ITE in-the-ear
- ITC in-the-canal
- RIC receiver-in-canal
- CIC completely-in-the-canal
- hearing assistance devices may include devices that reside substantially behind the ear or over the ear.
- Such devices may include hearing aids with receivers associated with the electronics portion of the behind-the-ear device, or hearing aids of the type having receivers in the ear canal of the user, including but not limited to receiver-in-canal (RIC) or receiver-in-the-ear (RITE) designs.
- the present subject matter can also be used in hearing assistance devices generally, such as cochlear implant type hearing devices. It is understood that other hearing assistance devices not expressly stated herein may
Landscapes
- Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
- Signal Processing (AREA)
- Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
- Acoustics & Sound (AREA)
- Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
- Otolaryngology (AREA)
- General Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
- Neurosurgery (AREA)
- Computational Linguistics (AREA)
- Quality & Reliability (AREA)
- Audiology, Speech & Language Pathology (AREA)
- Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
- Multimedia (AREA)
- Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
- Circuit For Audible Band Transducer (AREA)
Abstract
Description
- This document relates generally to hearing assistance systems and more particularly to adaptive binaural beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information for noise reduction and speech quality.
- Hearing aids are used to assist people suffering hearing loss by transmitting amplified sounds to their ear canals. Damage of outer hair cells in a patient's cochlear results loss of frequency resolution in the patient's auditory perception. As this condition develops, it becomes difficult for the patient to distinguish speech from environmental noise. Simple amplification does not address such difficulty. Thus, there is a need to help such a patient in understanding speech in a noisy environment.
- A hearing assistance system includes an adaptive binaural beamformer based on a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) optimized for noise reduction and speech quality criteria using a priori spatial information. In various embodiments, the optimization problem may be formulated as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) aiming at striking an appropriate balance between these criteria. In various embodiments, the MWF may execute a low-complexity iterative dual decomposition algorithm to solve the QCQP formulation.
- In one embodiment, a hearing assistance system includes a microphone, a processing circuit, and a receiver. The microphone receives an input sound and produce a microphone signal representative of the input sound. The input sound includes a speech from a sound source. The processing circuit processes the microphone signal to produce an output signal. The processing circuit includes a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and approximately optimizes the MWF for noise reduction and speech quality in the output sound using a priori spatial information about the sound source. The receiver produces an output sound including the speech using the output signal.
- In one embodiment, a method for operating a hearing assistance system is provided. A microphone signal is received. The microphone signal is representative of an input sound including a speech from a sound source. The microphone signal is processed to produce an output signal using a processing circuit including an MWF. The MWF is approximately optimized for noise reduction and speech quality in the output signal using a priori spatial information about the sound source.
- In one embodiment, a method for processing speech in a hearing aid is provided. A microphone of the hearing aid is used to receive an input sound including the speech from a sound source and produce a microphone signal representative of the input sound. A processing circuit of the hearing aid is used to process the microphone signal to produce an output signal. A receiver of the hearing aid is used to produce an output sound including the speech based on the output signal. The processing circuit including an MWF. The MWF is approximately optimized for noise reduction and speech quality using estimated acoustic transfer functions (ATFs) for the sound source.
- This Summary is an overview of some of the teachings of the present application and not intended to be an exclusive or exhaustive treatment of the present subject matter. Further details about the present subject matter are found in the detailed description and appended claims. The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.
-
-
FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment of a hearing assistance system including a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF). -
FIG. 2 is an illustration of an embodiment of a hearing assistance system with an MWF operating in frequency domain. -
FIG. 3 is an illustration of an embodiment of a process for solving an optimization problem for the MWF ofFIG. 2 . -
FIG. 4 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms in noise reduction and speech quality. -
FIG. 5 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms, including the process ofFIG. 3 with various numbers of iterations, in noise reduction and speech quality. -
FIG. 6 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms at different levels of error in voice activity detection (VAD). - The following detailed description of the present subject matter refers to subject matter in the accompanying drawings which show, by way of illustration, specific aspects and embodiments in which the present subject matter may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the present subject matter. References to "an", "one", or "various" embodiments in this disclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and such references contemplate more than one embodiment. The following detailed description is demonstrative and not to be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the present subject matter is defined by the appended claims, along with the full scope of legal equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
- This document discusses, among other things, a hearing assistance system including an adaptive beamformer that is approximately optimized using a priori spatial information for noise reduction and speech quality in binaural hearing assistance devices such as binaural hearing aids. Multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) has been proposed for adaptive binaural beamforming in hearing aids. The basic idea of using MWF for hearing aids is to obtain the minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) estimation of a reference signal. Several existing algorithms have been proposed for applying MWF designs to binaural hearing aids. Such algorithms exploit extra degrees of freedom brought by multiple microphones. However, these MMSE filters can only be optimized when the signal correlation matrix is accurately estimated, such as in an unrealistic scenario in which signals are stationary and perfect voice activity detection (VAD) is available. Otherwise, the performance of two design criteria (or objectives), noise reduction and speech quality (intelligibility), will greatly degrade.
- For example, because the mean-square-error (MSE) of the target reference signal and its estimation is minimized, these existing algorithms can significantly improve the noise reduction performance of the binaural hearing aids. However, they inevitably cause undesirable speech distortions. To mitigate the latter effect, speech distortion weighted MWF (SDW-MWF) has been proposed to balance these two design criteria using a predetermined trade-off parameter (S. Doclo, M. Moonen, T. Van den Bogaert, and J. Wouters, "Reduced-Bandwidth and Distributed MWF-Based Noise Reduction Algorithms for Binaural Hearing Aids," IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, vol. 17 no. 1, pp. 38V51, 2008). In another approach, it has been suggested to explicitly enforce a speech distortion upper bound with some a priori spatial information. Examples include parameterized multichannel non-causal Wiener filter (PMWF) (M. Souden, J. Benesty, and S. Affes, "On Optimal Frequency-Domain Multichannel Linear Filtering for Noise Reduction," IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 260-276, 2010), minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR), and linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) (A. Spriet, S. Doclo, M. Moonen, and J. Wouters, "A unification of adaptive multi-microphone noise reduction systems," in Proc. IWAENC, 2006).
- Disadvantages of such existing MWF algorithms and their variants result from their two fundamental assumptions: (1) the signal correlation matrix can be accurately estimated, and (2) a perfect VAD is available. Neither of these assumptions is practically applicable. For example, the target reference signal of human speaking and the multi-talker babble noise are usually non-stationary, and there is no known method for computing the correlation matrix. In a realistic scenario, the perfect VAD is not available, thus making the estimated correlation matrix more erroneous. The existing MWF algorithms do not provide for an optimal MMSE estimation of the reference signal, and therefore lead to performance degradation. Although the trade-off parameter for SDW-MWF can balance the performance of the two design criteria, the explicit relationship between the trade-off parameter and the design criteria is not clear. Hence, given a specific requirement for the speech distortion, proper tuning for the trade-off parameter is required. For the variants of MWF, such as PMWF, MVDR, and LCMV, the allowable speech distortion is explicitly constrained, and no parameter tuning is required. However, they usually suffer higher computation complexity, especially when there are multiple speech quality and noise reduction constraints.
- The present subject matter provides hearing aids with adaptive binaural beamforming using a new MWF design that (1) alleviates the performance degradation resulting from inaccurate estimation of the signal correlation matrix, and (2) balances the performance of the two design criteria: noise reduction and speech quality. In various embodiments, a priori spatial information is incorporated into the MWF design. In various embodiments, the present subject matter also provides a general low-complexity iterative algorithm that has similar computation complexity as a conventional MWF.
- In various embodiments, (approximate) knowledge of acoustic transfer functions (ATFs) for the signal sources is used to approximately optimize the MWF. This knowledge can be obtained by estimating the direction of arrivals (DOAs) of the signal sources with an assumption of the surrounded environment, e.g., anechoic room. The optimization problem is formulated as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP) aiming at striking an appropriate balance between the two design criteria: noise reduction and speech quality. A low-complexity iterative dual decomposition approach is applied to solve the QCQP formulation. For each iteration, the filter can be updated in closed-form with similar computational complexity as the conventional MWF design. The low-complexity algorithm is very efficient in practice. It often achieves a near-optimal performance within 5 to 10 iterations. More importantly, it can achieve better performance in terms of both design criteria (noise reduction and speech quality) under a reverberant room setting with imperfect spatial information. The improvement becomes much more significant when VAD errors increase.
- In various embodiments, the formulated QCQP allows the number of constraints and the allowable minimum noise reduction and maximum speech distortion to be arbitrary with a unified low-complexity dual decomposition approach implementation. Therefore, the low-complexity algorithm can be used for other constrained MWF formulations as well.
- Because the constraints of the formulated QCQP are independent of the correlation matrix of the signals, it is more robust to the estimation error of the correlation matrix. Therefore, numerical simulations show that the present subject matter provides for a better performance when the correlation matrix of the signals cannot be accurately estimated, such as when signals are not stationary or when imperfect VAD is used. Such benefits are achieved with similar computation complexity as the existing algorithms.
-
FIG. 1 is an illustration of an embodiment of ahearing assistance system 100 including an MWF.System 100 includes amicrophone 102, aprocessing circuit 104, and a receiver (speaker) 106. In one embodiment,system 100 is implemented in a hearing aid of a pair of binaural hearing aids.Microphone 102 represents one or more microphones each receiving an input sound and produces a microphone signal being an electrical signal representing the input sound.Processing circuit 104 processes the microphone signal(s) to produce an output signal.Receiver 106 produces an output sound using the output signal. In various embodiments, the input sound may include various components such as speech and noise as well as sound fromreceiver 106 via an acoustic feedback path.Processing circuit 104 includes an adaptive filter to reduce the noise and acoustic feedback. In the illustrated embodiment, the adaptive filter includes anMWF 108. In various embodiments whensystem 100 is implemented in a hearing aid of a pair of binaural hearing aids,processing circuit 104 receives at least another microphone signal from the other hearing aid of the pair of binaural hearing aids, andMWF 108 provides adaptive binaural beamforming using microphone signals from both of the hearing aids. - In various embodiments,
MWF 108 is configured to be approximately optimized to satisfy criteria specified in terms of noise reduction and speech quality in the output signal using a priori spatial information of source(s) of sound including speech. For example,MWF 108 is configured to ensure that a measure of noise reduction does not fall below a specified noise threshold while a measure of speech distortion does not exceed a specified speech threshold using the ATF from a sound source to the hearing aid. In various embodiments,processing circuit 104 is configured to approximately optimizingMWF 108 by solving a constrained optimization problem formulated as QCQP using the low-complexity iterative dual decomposition approach as discussed above. -
FIG. 2 is an illustration of an embodiment of ahearing assistance system 200 with an MWF operating in frequency domain.System 200 represents an embodiment ofsystem 100. In one embodiment,system 200 is implemented in a hearing aid of a pair of binaural hearing aids, and the MWF provides adaptive binaural beamforming using microphone signals from both of the hearing aids. - In the illustrated embodiment, an A/D block 210 converts the microphone signal produced by
microphone 102 from an analog microphone signal into a digital microphone signal. In various embodiments, A/D block 210 includes an analog-to-digital converter and may include various amplifiers or buffers to interface withmicrophone 102. The digital microphone signal, which represents a superposition of acoustic feedback and other sounds is processed by processingcircuit 204. A D/Ablock 220 converts the digital output signal produced by processingcircuit 204 into an analog output signal using whichreceiver 106 can produce an output sound. In various embodiments, D/Ablock 220 includes a digital-to-analog converter and may include various amplifiers or signal conditioners for conditioning the analog output signal for use byreceiver 106. -
Processing circuit 204 represents a simplified flow of digital signal processing from the digital microphone signal to the digital output signal. In one embodiment, the processing is implemented using a digital signal processor (DSP). In the illustrated embodiment, the digital signal processing is performed in the frequency domain. Afrequency analysis module 212 converts the digital (time domain) microphone signal into frequency subband signals. Atime synthesis module 218 converts the subband frequency domain output signals into a time-domain output signal. One example for such conversions includes using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) for conversion to the frequency domain and an inverse FFT (IFFT) for conversion to the time domain. Other conversion method and apparatus may be employed without departing from the scope of the present subject matter. -
Signal processing module 216 includes various types of subband frequency domain signal processing thatsystem 200 may employ. In various embodiments in whichsystem 200 is implemented in the hearing aid, such processing may include adjustments of gain and phase for the benefit of the hearing aid user. -
MWF 208 represents an embodiment ofMWF 108. In various embodiments,MWF 208 is configured to provide a noise reduction of a specified minimum amount while keeping speech distortion within a specified limit. In various embodiments,MWF 208 is used in a binaural hearing aid design with frequency-domain implementation. The output offrequency analysis module 212 can be expressed as:
where M is the total number of microphones in both of the hearing aids (the pair of binaural hearing aids), y(i,ω) is the microphone signal at the i-th time frame and the frequency tone ω, which composes of two separating parts, i.e., target signal x(i, ω) and the noise signal v(i, ω). The target signal at the hearing aids can be expressed as
Where s(i, ω) is the target reference signal, and h(ω) is the ATF from the target reference signal to the hearing aids. Similarly, the noise signal at the hearing aids can be expressed as:
where - Given these notations, a constrained optimization problem for the frequency-domain MWF design for each frequency tone is formulated according to the present subject matter as:
where w(ω)† is the Wiener filter coefficient vector; h(ω, θ), - In various embodiments,
processing circuit 204 is configured to solve the constrained optimization problem using a customized low-complexity dual decomposition approach. The basic idea is to dualize the constraints into the objective function with dual variables δ, so the dualized unconstrained optimization problem can be solved in closed-form as the conventional MWF algorithm. The dual variables δ can be updated in closed-form as well.FIG. 3 is an illustration of an embodiment of such a process. InFIG. 3 , α is the step size that determines the convergence rate of the iterative algorithm. Examples for the step size include fixed step size or diminishing step size. -
FIG. 4 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms in noise reduction and speech quality, for the purpose of illustrating the benefits of the present QCQP formulation and the efficiency of the present customized low-complexity iterative algorithm with the following environment settings: (1) 6 microphones; (2) 1 target reference source and 4 interfering noise sources; (3) perfect VAD; (4) reverberant room environment with T60=200ms; and (5) knowledge of ATFs of the anechoic room with 5∼10° DOA estimation errors. The performance of intelligibility-weighted signal to noise ratio improvement (IW-SNRI) and intelligibility-weighted speech distortion (IW-SD) are first compared (A. Spriet, M. Moonen, and J. Wouters, "Robustness analysis of multichannel Wiener filtering and generalized sidelobe cancellation for multimicrophone noise reduction in hearing aid applications," IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 487-503, 2005). From the experiment result as shown inFIG. 4 , it can be observed that the QCQP formulation achieves the best performance in IW-SNRI when compared to conventional MWF and MVDR, and better performance on IW-SD when compared to MVDR. -
FIG. 5 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms, including the present customized low-complexity iterative algorithm with various numbers of iterations, in noise reduction and speech quality. Under the same environment settings as discussed forFIG. 4 above, instead of using commercial optimization toolbox for the QCQP formulation, the present low-complexity iterative algorithm was applied. It can be observed inFIG. 5 that near-optimal performance can be achieved within 5∼10 iterations, while only marginal improvements were further achieved with up to 50 iterations. -
FIG. 6 includes graphs of performance data of various MWF algorithms at different levels of error in the VAD. To test the imperfect VAD, it is assumed that 30% of the noise-only frames is wrongly detected as signal-plus-noise frames, and 0%∼30% of the signal-plus-noise frames is wrongly detected as noise-only frames. From the experiment result as shown inFIG. 6 , the robust performance of the QCQP formulation can be observed. - In the discussion above, it is assumed that the required data transmission rate between the hearing aids can be unlimited, and a large portion of it is used for estimating the signal correlation matrices. However, for the present QCQP formulation, only the objective function depends on the correlation matrix of the noise signal, while the constraints are independent of them. This means that with a rough or inaccurate estimation of correlation matrix, an acceptable performance can still be achieved. Hence, in various embodiments, the data transmission rate between the hearing aids can be reduced to decrease the communication overhead between the hearing aids.
- In various embodiments, the filter performance is further improved, and/or the computational complexity is further reduced, by properly selecting the set of possible candidate ATFs for the target source, denoted as U. From the QCQP formulation, it is clear that for each ATF in U, constraints on the maximum speech distortion are imposed. Since the computational complexity depends on the size of U, for reducing the computational complexity, U of smaller size can be chosen. On the other hand, when applying some existing algorithms to estimate the a priori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the outcome for different U, (for example: T. Gerkmann, and R. C. Hendriks, "Unbiased MMSE-Based Noise Power Estimation With Low Complexity and Low Tracking Delay," IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 1383V1393, 2012), there exists a specific U that results in the maximum a priori SNR performance. That suggests the ATF of the target reference should be close to the ATFs of the U. The QCQP formulation should use this specific U in the near future where the ATF of the target reference does not vary too much. The filter performance can then be further improved with this proper chosen U.
- It is understood that the hearing aid referenced in this patent application include a processor, which may be a DSP, microprocessor, microcontroller, or other digital logic. The processing of signals referenced in this application can be performed using the processor. In various embodiments,
processing circuit - The present subject matter is demonstrated for hearing assistance devices, including hearing aids, including but not limited to, behind-the-ear (BTE), in-the-ear (ITE), in-the-canal (ITC), receiver-in-canal (RIC), or completely-in-the-canal (CIC) type hearing aids. It is understood that behind-the-ear type hearing aids may include devices that reside substantially behind the ear or over the ear. Such devices may include hearing aids with receivers associated with the electronics portion of the behind-the-ear device, or hearing aids of the type having receivers in the ear canal of the user, including but not limited to receiver-in-canal (RIC) or receiver-in-the-ear (RITE) designs. The present subject matter can also be used in hearing assistance devices generally, such as cochlear implant type hearing devices. It is understood that other hearing assistance devices not expressly stated herein may be used in conjunction with the present subject matter.
- This application is intended to cover adaptations or variations of the present subject matter. It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. The scope of the present subject matter should be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of legal equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
Claims (15)
- A hearing assistance system for processing speech from a sound source, comprising:a microphone configured to receive an input sound including the speech from the sound source and produce a microphone signal representative of the input sound;a receiver configured to receive an output signal and produce an output sound including the speech using the output signal; anda processing circuit configured to process the microphone signal to produce the output signal, the processing circuit including a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and configured to approximately optimize the MWF for noise reduction and speech quality in the output sound using a priori spatial information about the sound source.
- The hearing assistance system according to claim 1, comprising a hearing aid including the microphone, the receiver, and the processing circuit.
- The hearing assistance system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the processing circuit is configured to approximately optimize the MWF for noise reduction and speech quality in the output sound using an acoustic transfer function (ATF) from the sound source to the hearing aid.
- The hearing assistance system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the MWF is configured to provide a noise reduction of a specified minimum amount while keeping speech distortion within a specified limit.
- The hearing assistance system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the MWF is implemented in frequency domain.
- The hearing assistance system according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the processing circuit is configured to approximately optimize the MWF by solving a constrained optimization problem formulated as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP).
- The hearing assistance system according to claim 6, wherein the processing circuit is configured to solve the constrained optimization problem formulated as QCQP using an iterative dual decomposition approach.
- The hearing assistance system according to claim 7, wherein the MWF is configured to keep a measure of the noise reduction from falling below a specified noise threshold and to keep a measure of speech distortion from exceeding a specified speech threshold.
- A method for operating a hearing assistance system, comprising:receiving a microphone signal representative of an input sound including a speech from a sound source;processing the microphone signal to produce an output signal using a processing circuit including a multichannel Wiener filter (MWF); andapproximately optimizing the MWF for noise reduction and speech quality in the output sound using a priori spatial information about the sound source.
- The method according to claim 9, comprising:receiving the microphone signal from a microphone of a hearing aid;processing the microphone signal to produce the output signal using a digital signal processor (DSP) of the hearing aid; andproducing an output sound based on the output signal using a receiver of the hearing aid.
- The method according to claim 10, comprising:receiving a further microphone signal from another microphone of another hearing aid; andprocessing the microphone signal and the further microphone signal to produce the output signal using the DSP of the hearing aid.
- The method according to any of claims 9 to 11, wherein approximately optimizing the MWF comprises approximately optimizing the MWF using a set of candidate acoustic transfer functions (ATFs) from the sound source to the hearing aid.
- The method according to claim 12, comprising selecting the set of candidate ATFs using a priori signal-to-noise ratio performance associated with outcome of using different sets of candidate ATFs.
- The method according to any of claims 9 to 13, wherein approximately optimizing the MWF comprises:formulating a constrained optimization problem using a first set of constraints aiming to ensure that a measure of speech distortion does not exceed a specified speech threshold and a second set of constraints aiming to ensure that a measure of noise reduction does not fall below a specified noise threshold; andsolving the constrained optimization problem.
- The method according to claim 14, wherein formulating the constrained optimization problem comprises formulating a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP), and solving the constrained optimization problem comprises solving the constrained optimization problem formulated as QCQP using an iterative dual decomposition approach.
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
US201462036361P | 2014-08-12 | 2014-08-12 |
Publications (3)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
EP2986026A1 true EP2986026A1 (en) | 2016-02-17 |
EP2986026B1 EP2986026B1 (en) | 2018-01-31 |
EP2986026B2 EP2986026B2 (en) | 2022-09-21 |
Family
ID=53835340
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
EP15180702.1A Active EP2986026B2 (en) | 2014-08-12 | 2015-08-12 | Hearing assistance device with beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information |
Country Status (3)
Country | Link |
---|---|
US (1) | US9949041B2 (en) |
EP (1) | EP2986026B2 (en) |
DK (1) | DK2986026T3 (en) |
Cited By (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US10425745B1 (en) | 2018-05-17 | 2019-09-24 | Starkey Laboratories, Inc. | Adaptive binaural beamforming with preservation of spatial cues in hearing assistance devices |
US10555094B2 (en) | 2017-03-29 | 2020-02-04 | Gn Hearing A/S | Hearing device with adaptive sub-band beamforming and related method |
Families Citing this family (3)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US11806531B2 (en) | 2020-12-02 | 2023-11-07 | Envoy Medical Corporation | Implantable cochlear system with inner ear sensor |
US11839765B2 (en) * | 2021-02-23 | 2023-12-12 | Envoy Medical Corporation | Cochlear implant system with integrated signal analysis functionality |
US11865339B2 (en) | 2021-04-05 | 2024-01-09 | Envoy Medical Corporation | Cochlear implant system with electrode impedance diagnostics |
Family Cites Families (25)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US2235550A (en) * | 1938-11-15 | 1941-03-18 | Gen Electric | Amplifier |
US5479522A (en) | 1993-09-17 | 1995-12-26 | Audiologic, Inc. | Binaural hearing aid |
US5511128A (en) | 1994-01-21 | 1996-04-23 | Lindemann; Eric | Dynamic intensity beamforming system for noise reduction in a binaural hearing aid |
DK1057367T3 (en) | 1998-02-18 | 2008-05-13 | Widex As | Binaural digital hearing aid system |
WO2001097558A2 (en) | 2000-06-13 | 2001-12-20 | Gn Resound Corporation | Fixed polar-pattern-based adaptive directionality systems |
US7206421B1 (en) | 2000-07-14 | 2007-04-17 | Gn Resound North America Corporation | Hearing system beamformer |
EP1320281B1 (en) | 2003-03-07 | 2013-08-07 | Phonak Ag | Binaural hearing device and method for controlling such a hearing device |
US7330556B2 (en) | 2003-04-03 | 2008-02-12 | Gn Resound A/S | Binaural signal enhancement system |
WO2005006808A1 (en) * | 2003-07-11 | 2005-01-20 | Cochlear Limited | Method and device for noise reduction |
DE102004024855A1 (en) | 2004-05-19 | 2005-12-15 | Océ Document Technologies GmbH | Method and device for interpolating and correcting an image |
US8139787B2 (en) | 2005-09-09 | 2012-03-20 | Simon Haykin | Method and device for binaural signal enhancement |
US8744844B2 (en) * | 2007-07-06 | 2014-06-03 | Audience, Inc. | System and method for adaptive intelligent noise suppression |
GB0609248D0 (en) * | 2006-05-10 | 2006-06-21 | Leuven K U Res & Dev | Binaural noise reduction preserving interaural transfer functions |
DE102008015263B4 (en) | 2008-03-20 | 2011-12-15 | Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd. | Hearing system with subband signal exchange and corresponding method |
EP2211563B1 (en) | 2009-01-21 | 2011-08-24 | Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd. | Method and apparatus for blind source separation improving interference estimation in binaural Wiener filtering |
WO2010091077A1 (en) | 2009-02-03 | 2010-08-12 | University Of Ottawa | Method and system for a multi-microphone noise reduction |
EP2234415B1 (en) | 2009-03-24 | 2011-10-12 | Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd. | Method and acoustic signal processing system for binaural noise reduction |
US8515109B2 (en) | 2009-11-19 | 2013-08-20 | Gn Resound A/S | Hearing aid with beamforming capability |
EP2360943B1 (en) | 2009-12-29 | 2013-04-17 | GN Resound A/S | Beamforming in hearing aids |
US8737653B2 (en) | 2009-12-30 | 2014-05-27 | Starkey Laboratories, Inc. | Noise reduction system for hearing assistance devices |
US8615047B2 (en) * | 2010-07-30 | 2013-12-24 | Nec Laboratories America, Inc. | Beamforming systems and methods for link layer multicasting |
DE102012204877B3 (en) | 2012-03-27 | 2013-04-18 | Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd. | Hearing device for a binaural supply and method for providing a binaural supply |
DK3190587T3 (en) | 2012-08-24 | 2019-01-21 | Oticon As | Noise estimation for noise reduction and echo suppression in personal communication |
EP2747451A1 (en) † | 2012-12-21 | 2014-06-25 | Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. | Filter and method for informed spatial filtering using multiple instantaneous direction-of-arrivial estimates |
JP6204618B2 (en) * | 2014-02-10 | 2017-09-27 | ボーズ・コーポレーションBose Corporation | Conversation support system |
-
2015
- 2015-08-06 US US14/819,875 patent/US9949041B2/en active Active
- 2015-08-12 DK DK15180702.1T patent/DK2986026T3/en active
- 2015-08-12 EP EP15180702.1A patent/EP2986026B2/en active Active
Non-Patent Citations (8)
Title |
---|
A. SPRIET; M. MOONEN; J. WOUTERS: "Robustness analysis of multichannel Wiener filtering and generalized sidelobe cancellation for multimicrophone noise reduction in hearing aid applications", IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SPEECH AND AUDIO PROCESSING, vol. 13, no. 4, 2005, pages 487 - 503, XP011134931, DOI: doi:10.1109/TSA.2005.845821 |
A. SPRIET; S. DOCLO; M. MOONEN; J. WOUTERS: "A unification of adaptive multi-microphone noise reduction systems", PROC. IWAENC, 2006 |
CORNELIS BRAM ET AL: "Analysis of localization cue preservation by multichannel wiener filtering based binaural noise reduction in hearing aids", 2006 14TH EUROPEAN SIGNAL PROCESSING CONFERENCE, IEEE, 25 August 2008 (2008-08-25), pages 1 - 5, XP032761194, ISSN: 2219-5491, [retrieved on 20150403] * |
DOCLO S ET AL: "Reduced-Bandwidth and Distributed MWF-Based Noise Reduction Algorithms for Binaural Hearing Aids", IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUDIO, SPEECH AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, IEEE SERVICE CENTER, NEW YORK, NY, USA, vol. 17, no. 1, 1 January 2009 (2009-01-01), pages 38 - 51, XP011241217, ISSN: 1558-7916, DOI: 10.1109/TASL.2008.2004291 * |
M. SOUDEN; J. BENESTY; S. AFFES: "On Optimal Frequency-Domain Multichannel Linear Filtering for Noise Reduction", IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUDIO, SPEECH, AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, vol. 18, no. 2, 2010, pages 260 - 276, XP011329126, DOI: doi:10.1109/TASL.2009.2025790 |
S. DOCLO; M. MOONEN; T. VAN DEN BOGAERT; J. WOUTERS: "Reduced-Bandwidth and Distributed MWF-Based Noise Reduction Algorithms for Binaural Hearing Aids", IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUDIO, SPEECH, AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, vol. 17, no. 1, 2008, pages 38V51 |
SIMON DOCLO ET AL: "Comparison of Reduced-Bandwidth MWF-Based Noise Reduction Algorithms for Binaural Hearing Aids", APPLICATIONS OF SIGNAL PROCESSING TO AUDIO AND ACOUSTICS, 2007 IEEE WO RKSHOP ON, IEEE, PI, 1 October 2007 (2007-10-01), pages 223 - 226, XP031167117, ISBN: 978-1-4244-1618-9 * |
T. GERKMANN; R. C. HENDRIKS: "Unbiased MMSE-Based Noise Power Estimation With Low Complexity and Low Tracking Delay", IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUDIO, SPEECH, AND LANGUAGE PROCESSING, vol. 20, no. 4, 2012, pages 1383V1393, XP011420578, DOI: doi:10.1109/TASL.2011.2180896 |
Cited By (3)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
US10555094B2 (en) | 2017-03-29 | 2020-02-04 | Gn Hearing A/S | Hearing device with adaptive sub-band beamforming and related method |
US10425745B1 (en) | 2018-05-17 | 2019-09-24 | Starkey Laboratories, Inc. | Adaptive binaural beamforming with preservation of spatial cues in hearing assistance devices |
WO2019222534A1 (en) * | 2018-05-17 | 2019-11-21 | Starkey Laboratories, Inc. | Adaptive binaural beamforming with preservation of spatial cues in hearing assistance devices |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
DK2986026T3 (en) | 2018-05-07 |
EP2986026B1 (en) | 2018-01-31 |
US20160050500A1 (en) | 2016-02-18 |
US9949041B2 (en) | 2018-04-17 |
EP2986026B2 (en) | 2022-09-21 |
Similar Documents
Publication | Publication Date | Title |
---|---|---|
EP2916321B1 (en) | Processing of a noisy audio signal to estimate target and noise spectral variances | |
Doclo et al. | Reduced-bandwidth and distributed MWF-based noise reduction algorithms for binaural hearing aids | |
EP3542547B1 (en) | Adaptive beamforming | |
US8204263B2 (en) | Method of estimating weighting function of audio signals in a hearing aid | |
EP3190587B1 (en) | Noise estimation for use with noise reduction and echo cancellation in personal communication | |
EP3236675B1 (en) | Neural network-driven feedback cancellation | |
EP2986026B2 (en) | Hearing assistance device with beamformer optimized using a priori spatial information | |
US8842861B2 (en) | Method of signal processing in a hearing aid system and a hearing aid system | |
EP3704874B1 (en) | Method of operating a hearing aid system and a hearing aid system | |
JP6554188B2 (en) | Hearing aid system operating method and hearing aid system | |
WO2019222534A1 (en) | Adaptive binaural beamforming with preservation of spatial cues in hearing assistance devices | |
Marquardt et al. | Binaural cue preservation for hearing aids using multi-channel Wiener filter with instantaneous ITF preservation | |
US8233650B2 (en) | Multi-stage estimation method for noise reduction and hearing apparatus | |
Marquardt et al. | Optimal binaural LCMV beamformers for combined noise reduction and binaural cue preservation | |
Doclo et al. | Extension of the multi-channel Wiener filter with ITD cues for noise reduction in binaural hearing aids | |
US8385572B2 (en) | Method for reducing noise using trainable models | |
EP2688067B1 (en) | System for training and improvement of noise reduction in hearing assistance devices | |
Gode et al. | Adaptive dereverberation, noise and interferer reduction using sparse weighted linearly constrained minimum power beamforming | |
Ali et al. | Completing the RTF vector for an MVDR beamformer as applied to a local microphone array and an external microphone | |
Maj et al. | SVD-based optimal filtering technique for noise reduction in hearing aids using two microphones | |
EP3794844B1 (en) | Adaptive binaural beamforming with preservation of spatial cues in hearing assistance devices | |
US20220240026A1 (en) | Hearing device comprising a noise reduction system | |
Koutrouvelis et al. | A novel binaural beamforming scheme with low complexity minimizing binaural-cue distortions | |
Sonawane et al. | Signal Processing Techniques Used in Digital Hearing-Aid Devices: A Review. | |
Ali et al. | Using partial a priori knowledge of relative transfer functions to design an MVDR beamformer for a binaural hearing assistive device with external microphones |
Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
PUAI | Public reference made under article 153(3) epc to a published international application that has entered the european phase |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009012 |
|
17P | Request for examination filed |
Effective date: 20150812 |
|
AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: A1 Designated state(s): AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR |
|
AX | Request for extension of the european patent |
Extension state: BA ME |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R079 Ref document number: 602015007708 Country of ref document: DE Free format text: PREVIOUS MAIN CLASS: H04R0003000000 Ipc: G10L0021020800 |
|
GRAP | Despatch of communication of intention to grant a patent |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNIGR1 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: GRANT OF PATENT IS INTENDED |
|
RIC1 | Information provided on ipc code assigned before grant |
Ipc: H04R 3/00 20060101ALI20170425BHEP Ipc: H04R 25/00 20060101ALI20170425BHEP Ipc: G10L 21/0216 20130101ALI20170425BHEP Ipc: G10L 21/0208 20130101AFI20170425BHEP |
|
INTG | Intention to grant announced |
Effective date: 20170510 |
|
GRAS | Grant fee paid |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNIGR3 |
|
GRAA | (expected) grant |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009210 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: THE PATENT HAS BEEN GRANTED |
|
RAP1 | Party data changed (applicant data changed or rights of an application transferred) |
Owner name: STARKEY LABORATORIES, INC. |
|
RIN1 | Information on inventor provided before grant (corrected) |
Inventor name: ZHANG, TAO Inventor name: MERKS, IVO Inventor name: HONG, MINGYI Inventor name: LIAO, WEI-CHENG Inventor name: LUO, ZHI-QUAN |
|
AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: B1 Designated state(s): AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: GB Ref legal event code: FG4D Ref country code: CH Ref legal event code: EP |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: AT Ref legal event code: REF Ref document number: 968031 Country of ref document: AT Kind code of ref document: T Effective date: 20180215 Ref country code: CH Ref legal event code: NV Representative=s name: SERVOPATENT GMBH, CH |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: IE Ref legal event code: FG4D |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R096 Ref document number: 602015007708 Country of ref document: DE |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DK Ref legal event code: T3 Effective date: 20180503 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: NL Ref legal event code: MP Effective date: 20180131 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: LT Ref legal event code: MG4D |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: AT Ref legal event code: MK05 Ref document number: 968031 Country of ref document: AT Kind code of ref document: T Effective date: 20180131 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: HR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: NL Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: LT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: ES Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: NO Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180430 Ref country code: FI Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: LV Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: SE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: AT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: GR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180501 Ref country code: PL Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: IS Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180531 Ref country code: BG Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180430 Ref country code: RS Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: AL Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: EE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: IT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: RO Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R026 Ref document number: 602015007708 Country of ref document: DE |
|
PLBI | Opposition filed |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009260 |
|
PLAX | Notice of opposition and request to file observation + time limit sent |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNOBS2 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: SM Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: CZ Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: SK Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
26 | Opposition filed |
Opponent name: GN HEARING A/S / WIDEX A/S / OTICON A/S Effective date: 20181031 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: SI Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
PLBB | Reply of patent proprietor to notice(s) of opposition received |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: EPIDOSNOBS3 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: MC Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: LU Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180812 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: BE Ref legal event code: MM Effective date: 20180831 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: IE Ref legal event code: MM4A |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: IE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180812 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: FR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180831 Ref country code: BE Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180831 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: MT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180812 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: TR Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
GBPC | Gb: european patent ceased through non-payment of renewal fee |
Effective date: 20190812 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: PT Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: CH Ref legal event code: PCAR Free format text: NEW ADDRESS: WANNERSTRASSE 9/1, 8045 ZUERICH (CH) |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: CY Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: MK Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20180131 Ref country code: HU Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT; INVALID AB INITIO Effective date: 20150812 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: GB Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20190812 |
|
PUAH | Patent maintained in amended form |
Free format text: ORIGINAL CODE: 0009272 |
|
STAA | Information on the status of an ep patent application or granted ep patent |
Free format text: STATUS: PATENT MAINTAINED AS AMENDED |
|
27A | Patent maintained in amended form |
Effective date: 20220921 |
|
AK | Designated contracting states |
Kind code of ref document: B2 Designated state(s): AL AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MK MT NL NO PL PT RO RS SE SI SK SM TR |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: DE Ref legal event code: R102 Ref document number: 602015007708 Country of ref document: DE |
|
PGFP | Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: DK Payment date: 20220711 Year of fee payment: 8 |
|
PGFP | Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: CH Payment date: 20220901 Year of fee payment: 8 |
|
P01 | Opt-out of the competence of the unified patent court (upc) registered |
Effective date: 20230515 |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: DK Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF FAILURE TO SUBMIT A TRANSLATION OF THE DESCRIPTION OR TO PAY THE FEE WITHIN THE PRESCRIBED TIME-LIMIT Effective date: 20220921 |
|
PGFP | Annual fee paid to national office [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: DE Payment date: 20230728 Year of fee payment: 9 |
|
REG | Reference to a national code |
Ref country code: CH Ref legal event code: PL |
|
PG25 | Lapsed in a contracting state [announced via postgrant information from national office to epo] |
Ref country code: CH Free format text: LAPSE BECAUSE OF NON-PAYMENT OF DUE FEES Effective date: 20230831 |